Kishore Biyani unveils plan to make Future Group a trillion-dollar-revenue group by 2047

Kishore Biyani’s Future Group has partnered with Google and Facebook and consulting firm Deloitte for the rollout of its Retail 3.0 initiative. Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint

After several attempts at integrating the company’s digital and brick and mortar retail businesses, Future Group chairman and chief executive Kishore Biyani has unveiled Retail 3.0, a digital strategy aimed at making the group Asia’s largest leading integrated consumer company with a trillion dollars in revenue by 2047.

The group expects to grow at a 20% compound annual growth rate for the next 30 years, Biyani said in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Future Group is the parent of four listed retail entities Future Retail Ltd, Future Lifestyle Fashion Ltd and Future Consumer Ltd and Future Enterprises Ltd which together have a combined revenue of $4.4 billion, Biyani said in a presentation. He also cited a Citigroup report that estimated that the Indian economy will be $85 trillion by 2050 and the largest in the world.

The company has partnered with technology companies Google and Facebook and consulting firm Deloitte for the roll out of its Retail 3.0 initiative which will see it use a high level of personalisation and predictive and analytical technologies.

The Group has also partnered with seven startups in the area of chatbox, machine learning, and voice recognition out of its Consumer and Data Lab in Bengaluru. The lab was launched about six months ago. The company is also building a data lake, a data repository on which it will build its Artificial Intelligence in Bangalore and Kolkata led by Sandipan Chattopadhyay, former chief technology officer at Just Dial Ltd. Data Lake is using the Julia data language to build its data capabilities.

The technology integration is being piloted for the last nine months in 350 EasyDay stores in Punjab and National Capital Region with 500,000 members. The company plans to open 10,000 EasyDay tech-enabled stores by 2022. The approximate investment for each store will be Rs15 lakh and they will be spread across 3,500-4,000 sq ft and offer 3,500 items of dairy need and essentials.

The stores will also be a marketplace giving consumers access to the company’s entire inventory through digital medium. The tech-enabled EasyDay stores will be members only, with each store having a maximum of 2,000 members. Biyani expects 50% of the members which is 10 million people, to have an average spend of Rs 1 lakh per annum translating into revenues of Rs 1 trillion.

Currently, the average spend of the members at the EasyDay stores is Rs40,000-50,000 per annum, said Biyani. There are currently 700 EasyDay stores. The EasyDay Club membership will come at a cost of Rs599 per annum and will ensure that members get a 10% discount across all items. It will also be available to members of its other retail chains like Heritage and Nilgiris, said Biyani.

The new EasyDay stores will be opened with assistance from Google, which will help the company in mapping consumer density. The member data will be enriched by Facebook which will provide consumer details and also give the consumer options to order on Facebook messenger or WhatsApp. Deloitte will assist in workflow, Biyani said in his presentation. The company is looking at rolling out a voice assistant Saral, and an app.

“Technology impacts the mind and behaviour of people and we are looking at how we can be a part of that experience,” said Biyani while noting that retail 1.0 was in the 1990’s when modern retail took off in India. Then came retail 2.0, a decade later and next is 3.0.